


All Those Sometimes (One Time)

by nextdoorneighbor



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Boys Kissing, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Oneshot, not really fluff but not angst either? has aspects from both, other members mentioned - Freeform, ten-centric, there's really nothing to tag whoops, they are idols here but the events aren't pinned into a canon timeframe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-27
Updated: 2018-02-27
Packaged: 2019-03-24 19:13:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13817640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nextdoorneighbor/pseuds/nextdoorneighbor
Summary: They both know that it is bad, they know how dangerous it is, but they can’t keep away. They know they shouldn’t, but a lot of things that shouldn’t, happen anyways.Sometimes, Ten sits at the table, and thinks about his life.





	All Those Sometimes (One Time)

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and welcome! 
> 
> The Jaeten tag is so dry I decided to add this short thing. Keep in mind that the events do not play out in the order I've written them in, as Ten is looking back on his life, you don't think of things in their chronological order (usually). 
> 
> I do hope that you enjoy and maybe leave a comment! I'm curious of what you think happened in what order.

Sometimes, they go two weeks without more than glancing at each other over the breakfast table. 

Sometimes, there are words, sentences, sometimes even conversations to fill those weeks. Sometimes, they smile. Sometimes, they touch.

Sometimes, when there are touches, they are light, soft, so unnoticeable that it gets brushed away as it is, normal. 

For instance, passing each other in the company corridors can become lingering eyes and brushing of hands. Them standing beside each other and Jaehyun passing behind Ten can become his palm on Ten’s waist. But that is normal, all those sometimes. 

One time, it was four in the morning, and all of them were just waking up. Taeyong was exhausted beyond his measures, sitting on the counter and leaning against the side of the fridge, coffee cup barely between his hands as he tried to keep awake. Ten could almost picture his soul leaving his body. He truly worried for Taeyong’s health. 

He sipped from his own beverage, the first rays of the sun weakly lighting the kitchen through the open doorway. 

“Mornin’,” came the utterly fatigued rasp from just-awoken Jaehyun walking in. Ten flitted his eyes to the taller, the greeting wasn’t even pointed at him. 

“Hey, Jae,” Taeyong muttered back, hand over his eyes as Jaehyun patted his thigh a few times in the passing. 

It was the first time Taeyong had commented on it, this is why the particular morning is so important. 

But at the time, it was just Jaehyun picking up his mug and strolling to the coffee machine conveniently beside Ten, merely glancing somewhere toward him before looking away. Ten held his own cup to his lips, brain a mush at the early hour and the terrible lack of sleep, eyeing the younger at his task but not thinking anything of it. And that had been it; Jaehyun done with filling his mug and then consequently leaving the room in his silence. 

“Y’know the rules, Ten,” was what he had said that morning, “don’t you?” And even though Ten was dying to know what Taeyong was talking about, there was no way he could get a single word out to ask. He remembers the piercing look Taeyong’s tired eyes had given him, remembers the unease settling in his stomach. “No dating. Got it?”

“Tae,” Ten had let out with something resembling a chuckle, at least trying to. “You are worried about me,” he continued, waving his hand in the direction Jaehyun had walked just moments ago, “and him? You really need more sleep before you start imagining worse things.”

Taeyong smiled, leaning his head back against the fridge. That morning, Taeyong had sounded ridiculous. 

“Just remember the rules, ‘k?” 

Ten remembers the rules.

Sometimes.

“Jaehyun.” 

His eyes were wide open despite the late hour. Ten can track the feeling of Jaehyun’s grip on his bicep to this day, could feel the tension from that night if he were to close his eyes and concentrate. No one was at the hall beside them. 

“Sorry, I don’t know why I did that,” the other had said, gaze dropping to the floor between them as his fingers left Ten’s skin. 

“Figure you’d have something to say if you stop me like that, hmm?” Ten tried to fish for eye contact, lowering his head to get him to look back. He smiled when he got a glance, smiled wider when he saw the corner of Jaehyun’s mouth tugging upward, too. “You up to cuddling tonight?”

“Me?” Ten laughed wholeheartedly, it wasn’t like there was anyone else he could be asking. “Can’t imagine why you’d ask me.”

“Oh c’mon, not like we haven’t cuddled before,” Ten tried to convince, happy to have Jaehyun looking back at him. Jaehyun’s eyes were full of wonder. 

“Why not Johnny? You two in a fight?” Jaehyun’s tone was discouraging as well as worried, brows knitting together. In Ten’s opinion, Jaehyun was making it a lot bigger than it really was. 

“There’s no fight. You know what, just forget that I even asked,” he said, giving up. He turned around to go, but was stopped by Jaehyun’s hand, once again. 

“Sounds nice,” he said when their eyes met again. “Cuddling, I mean.” And that had brought the smile back onto their faces. 

Ten likes those nights. He likes having Jaehyun in his arms, likes to curl around his wider back. Sometimes it is inconvenient to be the smaller one but still the bigger spoon. But it doesn’t matter. He pressed his face into Jaehyun’s nape, felt the other interlace their fingers, both almost asleep. Sometimes, they just do this. 

Jaehyun is all soft lines and deep dimples. Jaehyun is the ‘good morning’s and ‘I hope you are doing okay’s. Jaehyun is what it feels like to be loved and Jaehyun is how you read a new book when knowing nothing about it beforehand. 

One time, they are all together, yielding promotions behind them and everyone just a little tipsy on life and alcohol. Ten can’t remember who’s the idea had been, but they were all in a circle, bottle laying on the ground in the middle and clock turning the pointers somewhere beyond the midnight mark. He barely remembers who he had kissed, maybe Taeyong, definitely Johnny. Hansol, too.

He enjoys when his friends praise him for his kissing skills, he enjoys when the others whistle at the scene he makes with everyone he is paired with. What happens inside these walls, stays inside these walls, and they are all drunk, it’s not like it’s going to matter tomorrow. 

Johnny spun the bottle for his fourth time – bad luck, he had said multiple times, but the outlines of his slight hard on didn’t go unnoticed from Ten. The bottle had landed onto Ten for the fifth time that night, and everyone had lost it at the fact that they would make out for the second time. 

Johnny is his best friend, and going by his politics, a little making out from time to time doesn’t hurt. 

So, he made a scene, plopped right down onto Johnny’s lap in the armchair, made sure to card his fingers through his own locks before grabbing at Johnny’s jaw to pull him in. He even recalls Johnny’s hands on his ass, but that isn’t as vivid. 

It’s just a game, he told himself when they were done and he backed up to his own spot on the floor, spinning the bottle once again. 

And it spun, and it spun, and it spun, and Ten felt dizzy, didn’t register on who it had landed for the first seconds. Jaehyun looked mesmerized, and the whole ring had shouted his name so loud since it was his first time picked that night. 

Ten smiled, not because he would be kissing Jaehyun but the pure thought of Jaehyun himself, just that he is, just that since Ten hadn’t had any contact with him through the night, so now he would. He watched as the younger steered across the space to him, brain whirring and making him stumble to the ground, clearly intoxicated as he was. 

“It’s just a game,” Ten whispered to him when their eyes met, heartbeat thumping in his ears. Jaehyun nodded. It’s just a game. Ten closed his eyes. 

It was sweet, innocent, it made Ten ground himself in the situation. It lasted only a few seconds, and when Jaehyun pulled away, Ten’s cheek was burning in the place where the peck was left. It was a lot more than them making out.

“What the fuck was that,” the displeased Taeil had shouted over the music even if the volume wasn’t high. Ten knew what it was, and he knew that he was out of breath for nothing. Jaehyun’s eyes were like starts. “Lame, guys! Ten, show him how it’s done,” said another grumbled voice, later identifying as Johnny. 

Ten dropped his eyes to Jaehyun’s lips, expurgating the wildest thoughts like they were never there. He has been doing that a lot. He was so _close,_ Ten’s mind had went, and somewhere between the lines his hand had cupped Jaehyun’s cheek. 

To everyone’s dismay, his lips landed onto Jaehyun’s forehead, a collective groan of distaste and booing going around. 

“No forcing anyone into anything they don’t want to do,” Ten said, gazing into Jaehyun’s knowing eyes. 

“If our Jaehyunnie isn’t okay with the idea of the game, he can leave the circle,” came Taeyong’s fatherly tone from somewhere outside of their little bubble. 

That one time, there was a lot more than ever said. 

Jaehyun is the salt in your food. Jaehyun is the awkwardness on first meeting. 

“Jesus, your shoulders are like rocks,” Yuta exclaimed one time, fingers already kneading at Ten’s shoulders. He had just appeared from somewhere, slamming his palms onto Ten from behind to scare him. 

Ten groaned, scrunched his face at the pain. It was far too long into the day for Yuta to be doing this. 

“You are in the need of a massage, come on,” he continued, tugging at Ten’s arm to get him to stand up. Ten groaned again, disagreeing, but Yuta didn’t give in, only poking at him to get up, not letting it go. “Don’t be childish, come with me.”

The moment they entered the living room and he saw Jaehyun, he backlashed. 

“We could just use my bed,” he suggested, drawing Jaehyun’s attention from his phone, other one of his earphones in. 

“You want a private session now? What else, me sucking you off? Just fucking strip and lay down before I change my mind,” Yuta scoffed bluntly, crossing his hands over his chest. Ten sighed, pulled his shirt over his head, noticing Jaehyun following his movement in his peripheral vision. “You need to relax, Ten, I promise you’ll feel much better when I’m done.” 

A few groans and profanities into it, Ten picked up that Jaehyun was definitely paying more attention to them than his phone, eyes mindlessly in the corner of the room, not mouthing words to the song that might not even have been playing through his earpiece.

“Fuck, ah,” he whined, enjoying the way the tips of Jaehyun’s ears went red. Yuta kept kneading his way through the knots, completely unaware of what was going on, and as far as Ten was concerned, it could go on that way. “Ah, right there,” he let out when Yuta hit a spot in between his shoulder blades, saw how Jaehyun’s eyes fluttered shut. 

“Damn, you’re loud. You like this in bed?” 

If Yuta wasn’t caging him to the couch with his thighs, Ten was sure he would have gotten up and teased Jaehyun a little more. He loved the reaction he was getting, yearned for more even, but he knew it was out of boundaries, knew that what he was doing was just evil, but he couldn’t stop, not anymore. 

A high pitched moan and Jaehyun was quick out of his seat, Ten at the same time disappointed and proud. He would have liked to see more, but guess his imagination needed to provide what would happen in the bathroom where Jaehyun locked himself into. 

Sometimes, when the sun has set and everyone in the car is half dead, if they were to sit beside each other, there can be a small shared moment. 

Those sometimes, Ten has one of his hands in Jaehyun’s lap, the taller one’s hands folding around it and submerging it in their warmth entirely. Ten leans his head a little closer every two minutes until it will be laying comfortably on Jaehyun’s shoulder, and sometimes, Jaehyun will lean his own temple on top of Ten’s head, but just if everyone in the car are tired enough. They will share a pair of headphones, Jaehyun’s white ones most likely, and if they are, the music is slow, soft, only pure instrumental. 

Ten loves those sometimes maybe the most, and if not the most, they are one of his favorites. 

One time, they decided to watch a movie together, just the two of them, because everyone else preferred sleep over it. Johnny moved out of his bed for the night just so he could have peace, and so Jaehyun and Ten took over Ten’s bed, laptop perched on the edge before their folded legs, backs leaned against the cool wall. 

Ten wrapped his fingers around Jaehyun’s hand fifteen minutes into it, that night he was feeling exceptionally lonely. The hand holding wasn’t out of ordinary, it wasn’t unnatural, but Ten wanted to somehow signal that he wanted to be closer without actually saying it. 

Ten felt drowsy, already regretting not just going to sleep, and because of that, at first he hadn’t even realized that Jaehyun had faced him. Then when he looked back, it did not really go by in a second, but still he found Jaehyun’s fingers burying in his hair and his lips pressing against his a surprise. 

His mind drew a blank card, body switching on autopilot, fingers gripping tighter around Jaehyun’s hand and other coming up to his chest. It wasn’t what he expected, but it sure was what he needed.

“Jaehyun,” Ten called when it was suddenly over, the other turned back to the laptop screen so hastily that Ten had to actually wonder if he just imagined the whole thing. “Jae,” he said again, mild panic taking over when the other still didn’t react. He took Jaehyun’s cheek into his free hand and turned his head, seeing how the light of the screen made one side of his face reflect white and blue, and the other be in complete darkness. “What was that?”

Jaehyun took a moment to answer, eyes darting over Ten’s face. 

“A kiss.”

“Yeah, but,” Ten whined, feeling helpless. Jaehyun just stared. Like it meant nothing. “Why?” 

“I’m sorry, did I make you uncomfortable?” 

Ten felt like he was saying the wrong words, he felt like he was feeling the wrong feelings. 

“You didn’t, I just,” he stuttered out, watched Jaehyun’s inanimate face. “Usually when you kiss me like that, you want to go further,” he explained, voice going almost extinct the further he got into the sentence. It took a lot to say out loud. 

“From this point onward, can I kiss you without wanting to go further?” 

That one time, the future was held in that one question. It was much more than kissing, it was a lot more than bliss. That one question held their everyday interaction, it held all the intentions behind anything they would do involving each other, it held the feelings they could never even bring up. Ten was terrified of giving the wrong answer. 

He looked to the laptop briefly, nodding his head so subtly Jaehyun couldn’t tell in the dimness. 

“Yeah,” he got out, nodding again, their gazes connecting. It was storming inside his stomach. He wasn’t sure but it might have been relief on Jaehyun’s face. That one time, Ten got over his fear. 

Jaehyun kissed him again, different, sugary, full of promise. It was dangerous, it was exiting, exhilarating, but most importantly, it was the right answer, although at the time they didn’t know it for sure. 

Going back to the movie, Jaehyun had kissed his palm when he took his hand off his cheek. Ten already liked what was to come, even if he couldn’t see into the future. 

He had pressed against Jaehyun’s side after that, just when he had collected enough courage to. Jaehyun seemed to melt into it, too, pressing more for Ten to mold against him, have his head onto his shoulder and so on, fingers interlocked. 

Ten treats this one time with utter care and tenderness.

Jaehyun is the loudest hurricane. Jaehyun is when the time stops. 

Sometimes, they share a hotel room. Not every time. But sometimes. 

One time, Jaehyun pulled him close on his own bed, far closer than a friend should, but no one was there to see, no one was there to stop them. 

Ten loves making out with Jaehyun. He has never loved the particular act with anyone as much as he does with him. He loves to hold him close, he loves the way kissing him makes him feel, loves the way Jaehyun’s hands wander a little further every time. He loves the noises Jaehyun makes, he loves how his thighs and calves feel wrapping around his middle. He could go on and on, but there really is no reason to. Ten just extremely loves kissing Jaehyun. 

And so this one time, they were much closer than friends should, Ten maybe and ultimately on top of Jaehyun, them both giggling between connected and unconnected lips, Jaehyun’s hand far up Ten’s shirt, fingertips tickling the skin they were resting over. 

Lightheaded and lighthearted, that was the mood. There was nowhere to go that night, nothing other to do, but even if there was, Ten was sure he wouldn’t like to attend. He just wanted this. He just wanted Jaehyun.

Jaehyun straight up moaned when Ten’s lips latched onto his neck, and Ten, in his too-far-gone and aroused state, bucked his hips forward. It was supposed to be fun. It was supposed to be light, do-good-feel-good thing, but the second Ten’s hips rolled against Jaehyun’s, the mood switched and so did Ten’s body, now against the mattress. 

He only came back to the moment when the hotel room’s bathroom door slammed shut, realizing just what had happened. He was trying to catch his breath, blurred gaze on the ceiling above. 

He remembered just how dangerous what they were doing is, just how much damage it would cause if someone was to find out. He rarely did, but at that moment he regretted choosing the famous life. Just how much easier it would all be with Jaehyun if they weren’t a part of a group. 

The night was silent as the next morning, too, Ten recalls the first time he even saw Jaehyun was after he came back from breakfast. 

“It’s a problem.”

Ten couldn’t disagree however much he wanted to. 

“It is.”

The silence shared felt longer than it probably was. The distance between them felt wider than it probably was, them sitting on their respectful beds, facing each other. In that moment, Ten hated himself more than anything. 

“We should talk about it then,” Jaehyun had proposed, lifting his gaze so they were finally looking at each other. “Y’know. So we know where both of us stand, maybe set boun–”

“No.” Jaehyun was taken aback. “No, we won’t talk about it ‘cause that makes it real. If we talk about it, we’re naming it, and if we are naming it, that’s one step closer for it all to fall apart.”

“That’s bullshit and you know that, too,” Jaehyun had exclaimed so loudly that Ten got scared of it all even worse. “Ten, we’re going to break something if we don’t work this out,” he continued, raising his voice in the heat of the moment, but all Ten could hear was anger, hate for him. Ten remembers Jaehyun swinging to him, voice silk as he whispered, “I didn’t mean to shout at you, I didn’t, baby, I’m so sorry,” as he smothered him, hugged, tried to take away the panic that he had caused. Ten can’t remember another time he had apologized as much as he did then. 

“Let’s not name it.” And they had not. They haven’t still. 

Sometimes, Jaehyun will kiss him the most odd times. After making sure that no one will see, he walks by and leaves a peck onto the side of Ten’s head. When they are making food, there might be a smooch on his cheek and other on his neck. Standing around waiting at the front door, Ten would get embraced and lips pressing everywhere they could reach. 

Sometimes, They would make out till they are breathless, they would turn each other on even if there was no place to help each other out. A bathroom without a single stall, the dorm room bed when there was no guarantee that no one would walk in on them. Those sometimes, it was the hardest for Ten to keep his hands away. 

One time, the only one time that turned into a Sometimes, The One Time, The First Time, when it so was that they had gotten far further into it that they ever were supposed to, Ten on top of Jaehyun on a different hotel room bed, on a different week and on a different month, they were out of breath. That time was the first that Ten ever saw the raw and pure image of Jaehyun. That time was the first that Ten saw Jaehyun without a singular piece of clothing and the first time he saw him feeling like he was in heaven. 

“That can never happen again,” had been the first thing he had said, half of it muffled by Jaehyun’s chest against his mouth. Their stomachs were glued together with stickiness, Ten’s brain circling around how he had just made the worst mistake of his life. 

At first, Jaehyun had just hummed, later getting a, “second that,” out, in a far too blissed out voice. 

But it happened again, more than once, as it did become a sometimes. They both know that it is bad, they know how dangerous it is, but they can’t keep away. They know they shouldn’t, but a lot of things that shouldn’t, happen anyways. 

 

Ten turns the spoon in his coffee cup slowly, head in his hand that is leaned against the table by his elbow, watching as the natural light from the window hits it in certain angles makes the wall in front flash with white. 

Sometimes, Ten sits alone at the table, and thinks about his life. 

Another person walks in, holding a steaming mug also. Then the mug is next to his on the table, and then the person sits in the seat next to him. 

Sometimes, they just do this. 

Ten turns his head, taking his time on detaching his eyes from the spoon between his pointer and his thumb. 

Sometimes, including this one time, Jaehyun looks back at him, and then they smile. 

All those sometimes, and all those one times, Ten hoped that he is not in love.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know. What do you think? Comments are always welcome!


End file.
